“I would hate for life to be boring,” says Gail Curley, co-owner of Lisbon’s Palácio Príncipe Real (palacioprincipereal.com; doubles from US$430). And this pink-walled 19th-century palace that she and her husband have recently transformed into a playfully pretty boutique hotel is anything but. Stepping through the hidden doorway into an oasis of jacaranda and lemon trees inset with a pool, I feel as though I’ve tumbled down Alice’s rabbit hole. Outside the high walls, wooden trams clatter along cobbled streets lined with striking tiled buildings. I half expect to see a peacock strut past, so lush are the grounds.
Indeed, Curley wanted guests to feel a frisson of surprise when checking in to one of the 28 rooms here, each (), set within the even newer Ivens hotel in nearby Chiado. The decor here is decadent, all floral prints and polished marble. The food, meanwhile, is part Italian, part Portuguese: think lobster with garlic butter and saffron risotto, truffled steak tartare, and brown crab ravioli.
